Boone Native taking passion for Cheering to the NFL

Thursday

After years of dedicating himself to a sport that he originally had no intention to pursue a Boone native has joined the big league of the NFL as a Tennessee Titan.

Back in 2010, as a sophomore from Boone High School, Robert ‘Robbie’ Fowler had a love for gymnastic. He found that testing the limits of his body wasn’t drawing attention from college recruiters, but by the school’s cheerleading coach.

But it wasn’t until he watched the film about cheerleading, Bring It On, that he really began thinking about cheerleading.

“ I could totally do that— it’s just like gymnastics,” he said. “Plus, I would actually get to perform for my school with my friends.”

So, that summer, he showed up to try outs, gave it his all and earned a position as one of the only two male cheerleaders on the Boone High School cheer squad.

While performing on the cheer team throughout high school, cheering at football games with his peers on the cheer team, he acted as the ‘strength’ of the squad.

According to Fowler, with his strength training, he was able to be the “strength” of the squad, performing tasks himself that would usuyally take multiple people to do.

On top of the stunts that the squad would perform, Fowler also took it upon himself to do a back handspring for each point that the home team had scored.

It’s this dedication and unique ability that made Fowler stand out to the University of Kentucky cheerleading team.

“In the beginning, cheering was really just a way to stay in shape for gymnastics,” Fowler said. “Then I started to develop a love for the sport and really didn’t want it to be over.”

Fowler has scarified countless hours to the sport of cheerleading, including missing out on prom his senior year to travel to Lexington, Kentucky for the team try out.

“I was so nervous,” he said. “They’re the best of the best. People who make it on that squad are going places.”

Saying ‘going places’ may be an understatement, considering the university’s cheerleading squad has won 23 national titles since the college initiated the program.

With a long history of excellence in the program, Fowler said he wasn’t sure how he was going to do after so many people told him he was going to fail.

Little did those who tore him down know that their words only drove him to practice and train even harder as the first male cheerleader to join their program from Iowa.

“People doubted me—told me I would fail,” Fowler said. “I had to prove them wrong.”

So, with Fowler on the team for three years, they won a National Title, and that success pushed Fowler to stand out even more, he said.

“People were watching me, they saw a lot of potential, but it wasn’t from what I was doing, it was what I wasn’t doing—giving up,” he said. “I may have failed a hundred times, but I never gave up.”

His success in cheerleading caused Fowler to struggle on what path to take his career.

“I wanted to be a dentist,” he said. “But that’s not where my passion was.”

So, he took a couple years off in 2016, changed his major to Kineseology and changed his mind.

The years went by, he worked, graduated, had a social life, but something was missing.

“I remember talking to one of my friends and they said, ‘Who is Robb without cheerleading?’ and I looked at her and thought really hard,” he said. “She was right, I started questioning myself and what I wanted.”

While working as a coach at a gymnastics facility in Lexington, that question lingered and never went away until one day he got a phone call.

Fowler said that apparently someone anonymously referred him to the Tennessee Titans cheer program. They liked his skill and knowledge and asked him to come try out.

That week, Fowler, made a trip to Nashville to try out.

“Talk about nerve racking, but I gave it everything I had,” he said.

The next week he got the offer, and since then has performed during two pre-season games with the Titans.

“Yeah, it’s a little overwhelming,” said Fowler, who now also manages two gymnastics facilities in Nashville. “Imagine going from having 26,000 eyes on to you to 80,000.”